Domestic Quarrying: Just Say USA?

   Often used for building and landscaping, domestic stone is frequently extracted by smaller companies and sold on a regional basis. And, just as the countertop market has boomed in recent years, these producers are seeing their own operations expand, along with their customer bases.
   As with other suppliers, they’re dealing with similar problems, from more competition to rising fuel prices.
   Some of the demand for domestic stone is being fed by more-knowledgeable consumers, say those in the U.S. quarrying business. Many of them also expect consumption to increase, as the push toward more green construction will make their products still more attractive to both residential and commercial customers.
  
SMALL…AND GROWING
   The most obvious response to the demand placed on these smaller quarries is the fact that they’re finding new stones to sell, and new ways to sell their existing products.
   Terrence Meck, executive sales manager for Boyertown, Pa.-based Rolling Rock Building Stone Inc., says demand for building stone is the primary reason behind the company’s subsidiary, Greystone Quarries Inc., as well as recent improvements to its processing capabilities.
   “Increased demand is really why we’re in existence, and why, even with being a newer company, there are developments that take place from a capital-investment standpoint,” he says. “We have multiple hydraulic splitters in operation, and we’ve built a new building so we could work in winter conditions.”
   That’s especially critical given that the company’s quarries – one limestone, along with a sandstone operation now in development — are within the Lake Ontario lake-effect snow zone and typically cope with several feet of snow over the winter.
   Bibb Frazier, co-owner of Harrisonburg, Va.-based Frazier Quarry Inc., says a different sort of demand got him into the dimensional-stone side of the business.
   “Our core crushed-stone business has been producing crushed blue limestone since 1915,” Frazier says. “But, nobody’s produced it as a dimensional stone since the 1950s. There’s been a latent demand and a cannibalization of old stone. We recognized this demand, and proceeded to learn how to produce this dimensionally again.”
   Frazier adds that the dimensional-stone side of the operation started with some of his best employees and a splitter, but that wasn’t enough to do the trick.
   “We just installed our saw shop in the winter of ’07,” he says. “Prior to this, a majority of our expense and time went into quarrying the blue limestone – learning how to get slabs out. We purchased a diamond-wire saw to saw down boulders, as well as a 64” finish saw and a bush-hammering/polishing machine.”
   The folks at Sturgeon Bay, Wis.-based Door County Custom Stone Inc., are even fresher to the game than that. After a 2004 start, followed by some personnel problems, the quarry only began full operation last year.
   “We’re expecting a big spring rush,” says company president David Small. “Housing numbers are down, but we have a unique stone from the Niagara escarpment, so it’s a specialized limestone that always seems to be in high demand because of the color and the quality and the strength.”
  
THE POTHOLES
   It’s a fact of economic life that high demand for a product also creates more people willing to fill that demand, and these small quarry producers say they see different types of competition.
   On the one hand, Brenda Edwards, owner and general manager of Garden City, Texas-based Texastone Quarries, says her operation is somewhat unique because most of her competitors offer ledge-cut or rubble stone, where she’s cutting blocks from the ground and processing them.
   “We don’t have a great deal of competition that way,” she says. “What I’m seeing is people saying that it’s natural stone when it’s not. It may have some limestone dust in it, but it’s not natural.”
   M.O. Bohrer, sales and marketing manager for Brownsville, Wis.-based Michels Corp., says that while he’s traditionally seen a lot of competition for dimensional limestone, his granite slab products are coming up against similar competition from people pushing solid-surface alternatives.
   Small says he’s seeing a different type of misrepresentation in his market: people who are packaging their stone so it shows one quality on the outside of the pallet, but another inside.
   “Even though we’ve just opened, we picked up several people with years of experience in the stone business,” says Small. “One of the reasons they left their previous employers was quality-control issues. As a new company, that’s how we’re trying to set ourselves up; it will be the same quality all the way through the pallet.”
   Frazier agrees with Edwards that some of his competition is coming from what he calls, “fake stone.” However, he feels the demand for full-size dimensional products has also been hurt by masons turning to thin veneers – block, brick, man-made or natural – that can be installed more-quickly.
   “These thin veneers, both man-made and natural, we call them ‘lick-and-stick,’ and they can be a real money-maker,” he says. “Builders are hesitant to pay the high price for a stone mason and are eager to have masons they may have on staff to install an easier-to-use, thin-veneer product. Right now, Frazier Quarry is developing products that can compliment veneer products, such as coping stone and other trim pieces.”
   His characterization of thin-veneer might be fighting words for producers such as Door County’s Small and Greystone’s Meck, who offer the thinner product. Not that Frazier is writing off that market.
   “Thin veneer is in the future for us,” he says. “But, our current focus is on quarrying high-quality blue limestone slabs for our new saw shop.”
   From his perspective, Meck thinks the competition is helping everyone – including his firm.
   “It’s important to keep customers happy and because there’s more demand, it’s nice to have other materials available,” he says. “It might hurt us more not to have those other materials available. It’s nice to have the variety, we share the market and hopefully the demand gets taken care of.”
   While competition varies from market to market and product to product, one outside factor that’s hitting all stone providers is rising fuel prices. But, because it’s hitting everyone, no one sees it as much of a problem. For the most part, it’s just something that’s passed on – ultimately – to the end user.
   However, Meck says it is having an impact on how Greystone – and Rolling Rock – distribute.
   “Naturally, you’re always going to have the vast majority of your business within a 500-mile radius when you’re quarrying building stone,” he says. “There are a lot of reasons for that, but obviously, the growth of our market outside that 500-mile radius is now going to be much slower.”
   Frazier’s Frazier says he sees rising fuel prices having a much-bigger impact on the crushed stone side of his business. However, it’s also having an impact on how he markets.
   “On the cut-stone side, we find it difficult to compete with the unlicensed procurers who are often picking field stones and placing them in baskets,” he says. “Our regulatory overhead compels us to price our product where we know it’s sustainable – and that’s on the high end.”
  
SOMETHING SPECIAL
   When it comes to thinking he has a special product – and marketing it as such – Frazier isn’t alone. There’s a real feeling these quarries are producing for particular niches.
   Frazier Quarry is marketing its stone under a trademarked name, Stonewall Grey®, that has historic ties to the Shenandoah Valley. “I’m looking to form a base in the market from institutions where the stone is an architectural legacy,” he says.
   “We’re a niche stone,” echoes Door County’s Small. “We have a unique type of rustic stone that’s been weathered. There are fissures in the quarry that allow water to go down and cause the stone to go to a light brown-buff color. Once you take off the first 10-15 feet, it’s gone forever.”
   Michels Corp.’s Bohrer says that company is positioning its products – both building stone and granite – for people who want the best.
   “We’re going for the high-end residential home market that seems to be recession-proof,” says Bohrer of his dimensional stone, which includes limestone under its Fond du Lac Stone division and red granite under its Anderson Bros. & Johnson division. “We want to sell to the people who are going to build a house no matter what the economy.
   “As far as our granite division, it’s the only dark red granite in North America and one of the two or three most expensive granites in the world. We definitely focus on the high end for that.”
   Making that task easier is the fact that more people not only know about natural stone than in the past – thanks in large part to cable television – but more of them are aware of what’s available to them locally.
   Texastone’s Edwards says that while her company advertises in the trades to make the industry aware of its products, it’s also tapping other venues.
   “We have a Website and we get a lot of response from that,” she says. “We also get a lot of people who know about us due to word-of-mouth. We’re proud of what we’ve done and the people who buy from us are proud of it, too, and that gets around.”
   Greystone’s Meck says more people are certainly turning to the Internet as a primary resource for gathering information.
   “A smaller operation can be found easier today than it was in years back, that’s for sure,” he says. “We use our Website to make sure people know we’re out here.”
   As with Edwards, Bohrer says he doesn’t mind taking a lower-tech approach in getting the word out on his stone to local customers, despite his nationwide trade advertising. Their company does homebuilder shows, and contractors can get a small break on the material if they let the company put a sign up when a project goes in.
   “Certainly, consumer demand is causing them to look a little harder at their options,” Bohrer observes. “And, with us, they can come direct-to-the-quarry. They don’t have to go thro²ugh a distribution warehouse, and that seems to be an advantage.”
   There’s also an undercurrent that their markets will only get bigger. Although the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design® (LEED) program is gaining in public awareness, these quarry people feel they’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg so far.
   Some of that, says Texastone’s Edwards, is the 500-mile maximum proximity used as a guideline for gaining LEED credits. Stone overall isn’t recognized as a green material by the USGBC, although she continues to field calls asking if her stone is LEED-certified.
   “There isn’t LEED certification yet, but the Natural Stone Council is working hard to get that accomplished,” she says. “One of these days that will happen, and while architects now have to use stone from within a 500-mile radius … once that restriction is taken off, what they’ll be able to do will be fantastic.”
   LEED certification’s current emphasis is on commercial and government projects, rather than residential ones. That doesn’t help companies such as Meck’s.
   “Residential is where our concentration is, and because of that, it’s going to take us a little longer to get folks looking for LEED-certified materials,” he says. “Some of the homebuilder groups are working in that direction, but there isn’t a lot of residential buzz – yet.”
   “I think this will be a key element for the stone industry to focus on,” says Frazier of LEED certification. “Our company meets much of the criteria already, as we recycle all our waste, including stone and lubricants.”
   Michels Corp.’s Bohrer is confident the demand will come.
   “There’s been a lot of talk and a lot of press about it, but we haven’t seen the demand from contractors yet,” he concludes. “We think it’s going to be there, though, and we’re preparing for it.”
  
This article first appeared in the May 2007 print edition of Stone Business. ©2007 Western Business Media Inc.